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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Graham Petrie, Laurence Sterne
Dr. Johnson said that Tristram Shandy was too odd to last as a classic. After reading it, it’s easy to understand why a man like him would not appreciate this bawdy book, especially when it openly refers to so many of his friends in an off-handed way. Even so, nearly 300 yrs later, I cracked open an edition printed in octavo paperback only a decade or two ago. Is it a classic? That’s a tricky but to crack.
Tristram Shandy is a farce in short, serialized, and regularly disjointed chapters. Referred to as “The Ultimate Shaggy Dog Story,” it ends with one of the characters referring to it as a story of a Cock and a Bull and one of the best ever told. Truth be told, the narrative is so disjointed that there is no central plot, though a few interesting events do unfold here and there. Above all else, the book displays a sort of Emperor’s New Clothes effect upon the culture it was written in, where serial publications kept readers eagerly watching book stalls to follow the next installment of their favorite novel.
My copy of Tristram Shandy covers about 575 pages of actual text, apart from prefaces, introductions, and indexes. Of those 575 pages, the functional stories developed in the book could probably be condensed into about 100 pages. The rest is an ADD mix of philosophizing and rabbit trails, stopping the story to talk about theories of literature, parenting, military engagement, etc. This is obviously the very nature of a shaggy dog story, but most of the characters commit crimes against the narrative and the narrator himself is the worst culprit. At times the comic effect is excellent, but more often than not it feels like the author is rushing out some weekly installment without any ideas for the narrative. A chapter ends on a high point of narrative tension and the next chapter talks for three pages about how the narrator wants to explain something else before he goes one and he thinks that’s okay. Then the third chapter in the sequence finally discusses the parlor maid’s experiences in Flanders or something, which never really comes back to influence the narrative we lost two chapters ago. And so forth.
Tristram Shandy is ostensibly trying to narrate and lament his own life experiences, starting with his conception and birth. His stories are filled with double-entendres and naughty jokes that are shocking from a 18th century source, but the comic effect is excellent when it isn’t too low-brow. He complains that his life started on the wrong foot then his parents were conceiving him and his mother was so distracted she asked his father if he remembered to wind the clocks mid-coitus. From there, he paints a slapdash array of stories about his life, spending 200 pages on the day of his birth before jumping to some random travels abroad and family history stories. The characters are really and truly genius inventions and many of the scenes and dialogues are worthy, but I tried to give up on this book a couple of times and learned to skim passages where his narrator discusses the merit of his own diversion. Nearly every third chapter is the narrator explaining why he should divert himself from the narrative.
Among his chief successes are the character of Tristram’s father Walter and Uncle Toby, and Uncle Toby’s servant Trim. Walter is an eccentric philosopher, a reader of obscure Greeks and Romans who has many unique ideas he vehemently holds to. He holds that names do most of the work in determining a person’s character and the story of how his son is accidentally christened with the worst name in history, Tristram, is a genius tale. Uncle Toby and Trim are old military campaigners obsessed with re-enacting military sieges on the lawn behind the house. The build towns and ramparts and day by day they reenact the effects of cannon fire and warfare on a model scale. Trim has a bad knee and Uncle Tony had the misfortune of a piece of a rampart falling upon him and wounding his “groin.” These two men are sentimental and somewhat simple, a sort of precursor to Jeeves and Wooster, with Trim being long-winded and Uncle Toby simple and sweet and a bit womanish. Walter is constantly offering diatribes that Toby cannot follow and Trim tells the saddest stories of friends and family lost to misfortune. When the widow down the street sets her sights on Uncle Toby and attempts to woo him, her efforts require incredible lengths before he gets the picture. Even so, when he does take notice and attempt to woo her back, she makes all attempts to discover the nature and location of his “groin wound” before she is ready to commit.
So much comic and character development, but it’s buried in hundreds of pages of drivel. I can’t imagine anyone I know finishing this book. Sterne got an audience on the hook, got famous as a wit, and milked this project for something like 7-8 years. In the end, it is disjointed far beyond comic effect. Like The Emperor’s New Clothes, making a joke of avoiding the point wears thin a long time before page 575.
Tristram Shandy is a farce in short, serialized, and regularly disjointed chapters. Referred to as “The Ultimate Shaggy Dog Story,” it ends with one of the characters referring to it as a story of a Cock and a Bull and one of the best ever told. Truth be told, the narrative is so disjointed that there is no central plot, though a few interesting events do unfold here and there. Above all else, the book displays a sort of Emperor’s New Clothes effect upon the culture it was written in, where serial publications kept readers eagerly watching book stalls to follow the next installment of their favorite novel.
My copy of Tristram Shandy covers about 575 pages of actual text, apart from prefaces, introductions, and indexes. Of those 575 pages, the functional stories developed in the book could probably be condensed into about 100 pages. The rest is an ADD mix of philosophizing and rabbit trails, stopping the story to talk about theories of literature, parenting, military engagement, etc. This is obviously the very nature of a shaggy dog story, but most of the characters commit crimes against the narrative and the narrator himself is the worst culprit. At times the comic effect is excellent, but more often than not it feels like the author is rushing out some weekly installment without any ideas for the narrative. A chapter ends on a high point of narrative tension and the next chapter talks for three pages about how the narrator wants to explain something else before he goes one and he thinks that’s okay. Then the third chapter in the sequence finally discusses the parlor maid’s experiences in Flanders or something, which never really comes back to influence the narrative we lost two chapters ago. And so forth.
Tristram Shandy is ostensibly trying to narrate and lament his own life experiences, starting with his conception and birth. His stories are filled with double-entendres and naughty jokes that are shocking from a 18th century source, but the comic effect is excellent when it isn’t too low-brow. He complains that his life started on the wrong foot then his parents were conceiving him and his mother was so distracted she asked his father if he remembered to wind the clocks mid-coitus. From there, he paints a slapdash array of stories about his life, spending 200 pages on the day of his birth before jumping to some random travels abroad and family history stories. The characters are really and truly genius inventions and many of the scenes and dialogues are worthy, but I tried to give up on this book a couple of times and learned to skim passages where his narrator discusses the merit of his own diversion. Nearly every third chapter is the narrator explaining why he should divert himself from the narrative.
Among his chief successes are the character of Tristram’s father Walter and Uncle Toby, and Uncle Toby’s servant Trim. Walter is an eccentric philosopher, a reader of obscure Greeks and Romans who has many unique ideas he vehemently holds to. He holds that names do most of the work in determining a person’s character and the story of how his son is accidentally christened with the worst name in history, Tristram, is a genius tale. Uncle Toby and Trim are old military campaigners obsessed with re-enacting military sieges on the lawn behind the house. The build towns and ramparts and day by day they reenact the effects of cannon fire and warfare on a model scale. Trim has a bad knee and Uncle Tony had the misfortune of a piece of a rampart falling upon him and wounding his “groin.” These two men are sentimental and somewhat simple, a sort of precursor to Jeeves and Wooster, with Trim being long-winded and Uncle Toby simple and sweet and a bit womanish. Walter is constantly offering diatribes that Toby cannot follow and Trim tells the saddest stories of friends and family lost to misfortune. When the widow down the street sets her sights on Uncle Toby and attempts to woo him, her efforts require incredible lengths before he gets the picture. Even so, when he does take notice and attempt to woo her back, she makes all attempts to discover the nature and location of his “groin wound” before she is ready to commit.
So much comic and character development, but it’s buried in hundreds of pages of drivel. I can’t imagine anyone I know finishing this book. Sterne got an audience on the hook, got famous as a wit, and milked this project for something like 7-8 years. In the end, it is disjointed far beyond comic effect. Like The Emperor’s New Clothes, making a joke of avoiding the point wears thin a long time before page 575.